Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Having a mix of trophy and long-tail phrases
ranking in Google search engine results pages (SERPs) is the equivalent of
manna from heaven to any online business. There's nothing better, if you have
it, and nothing worse, if you lose it.

More than one business has suffered collateral
(sometimes fatal) damage in the wake of a Google algorithm update. Thousands
more are certain to suffer a similar fate in the future.

The reality is that most small companies will neverrank
well in Google and are wasting their time focusing on SERPs alone. The days of
David beating Goliath in organic search are numbered, at best, and in most
cases, nothing but a memory.

If you don't have the budget to create content
and build backlinks better than your competitors, you will not outrank them. If
you're a new entry in a crowded niche, it will be a long time, if ever, before
you achieve any meaningful SERPs.

Rather than worry about losing or never having
Google organic search traffic, plan for it. No one can afford
to rely upon a single traffic source for business. You need multiple streams of
traffic as insurance against the inevitable changes in search algorithms.

There are several top blogs in your niche (like this one)
that get hundreds if not thousands of visitors on a daily basis. The proper way
to do blog commenting is to thoroughly read the post and if you
have something useful or meaningful to add to the conversation, then leave a
comment.

The purpose of commenting isn't to drop a
link, but to add value to the conversation and to grow your network. Use your
real name as the commenter and a percentage of readers will click through to
learn more about you.

Pro Tip: If
you have content on your site related to the post, use that URL as a link
rather than the home page. Those who do click through will then have an even
better user experience.

Just create great content and Google will
reward you with traffic, right? Maybe, if you have an established website with
lots of trust and authority. Not so much, if you have a new blog or website.
The workaround for this is getting your content listed on popular content
aggregators, where lots of people will see it

As you are reading this, there are probably
dozens of conversations happening around the Web that are related to your
niche. Joining or starting a forum conversation can result in instant traffic.

As with blog commenting, this isn't about
dropping a link, but rather about engaging a conversation and adding value to
that conversation. Forum commenting reminds me of the show AmericanPickers, where they discuss finding the honey hole. When we find a forum
where the client really "clicks" with the community, it can drive
thousands of visits over time.

Pro Tip: Find
related forums using the Google search operator "Keyword
inurl:forum." Join the forum, pay attention to the rules, participate, and
become a real member of that community. Avoid blatant self-promotion – it isn't
necessary and will backfire. If you're providing useful information in the
forum, users will seek you out.

Forget the speculation that Google+ is going
away – it isn't. If you need help getting started with Google+, please check
out my Google+ Quick Start Guide.Google+ can drive
loads of traffic, and you don't even need followers.

The strength of Google+ lies with communities.
As with forums, the participants are typically hardcore fans of a given
activity. We like to think of these folks as highly targeted prospects. Google
makes it easy tofind niche communities.

Pro Tip:Join
the leading communities in your niche. Engage with other members, by providing useful
information and giving +1s to others' posts. Once you've become a
recognized, trusted member of a community, then you can post
an occasional link to a useful and related blog post or article.

Matt Cutts' manifesto, "The Decay and Fall of Guest Blogging for SEO," has been widely misunderstood as meaning that guest
blogging is dead. It isn't. What Cutts said was this: "If you're using
guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop."

Guest blogging done properly has nothing to do
with links – it's all about leveraging traffic. If your content appears on a
popular blog, you accomplish two things:

1.You establish yourself
as an authority in the niche.

2.A certain percentage
of the blog readers will look into your product or service and become
customers.

Q&A sites like Quora and Yahoo Answers
offer another great opportunity to generate highly targeted traffic. If you can
provide a genuine solution to a real problem, you may have a customer for life.
At the very least, you'll build up good karma.

Pro tip:Don't
spam these sites by asking, then answering your own questions. Once again, the
purpose of this exercise is to provide useful information and to drive traffic.

If you can find a relevant niche or subreddit
with a decent number of subscribers (thousands) and traffic, then Reddit is an
option worth exploring. The key is to create useful content relevant to the
subreddit. A percentage of Reddit users will read your content, click through
to your site, and buy your product or service, if it is a good fit.

There are unique rules for every subreddit,
which you should know and follow. Generally speaking, links to your own site
are allowed, but linking exclusively to your own site is not.

Participating in the community is important,
so remember to leave comments for others. Reddit has a voting system, so the
more you post the better your chance to increase your score. Conversely, if
your content stinks and gets down voted, your score will go down. Over time,
you should build up a good reputation.

Pro Tip: Research
the sub-edit to see what types of posts historically get up voted to the front page. Once you know the pattern, create a unique version that matches the model
of past success. Page one is never guaranteed, but after some trial and error,
the odds for success will improve.

Bet you saw this one coming. For most people,
Facebook offers the best opportunity for traffic. The formula for success is
pretty simple: Optimize your Facebook profile and link back to your website.
Provide useful and fun content on a regular basis. Make it easy to share your
website content on Facebook by using a share button.

Pro Tip: Depending
on the niche, Twitter, Vine, and Instagram have all proven to be successful in
driving significant traffic. If you have the resources, test these out as well.

YouTube is the second largest search engine on
the Web, processing more than 3 billion searches a month. To put this in
perspective, it's bigger than Yahoo, Bing, Ask, and AOL combined and should not
be ignored.

In my experience, the best performing videos
for many e-commerce websites are how-tos and tutorials. Niche videos can drive
tons of traffic.

I bet you've never heard of the Honda Ruckus –
it's a small scooter. If you have a Honda repair shop, you might want to consider
producing a video on how to change the oil – this one has generated
more than 25,000 views.

The number one message delivered by top affiliate
marketers is "the money is in the list." In reality,every business
can benefit from a mailing list. With robust and easy-to-use email services
like mailchimp to
manage lists and campaigns, there's no excuse for missing out on this
opportunity.

Another reason to love email is the conversion rateof 3.34 percent.
Compare this to search at 1.94 percent and social at 0.79 percent and you can
see just how productive this form of marketing can be.

Pro Tip: A/B
test your emails. A simple variation in the subject line can vastly affect the
open rate.

Most, if not all, of these opportunities have
been polluted to some extent by spammers over the years. I'm not suggesting
that you act like a spammer. The point of this post is there are legitimate
ways to use these channels to deliver valuable information and drive targeted
traffic to your website.